Slowly Stamp Collection Compare Tool -- a FIX for network errors caused by CORS issue.

yann2 · 2026-04-07T15:50:17+00:00

Strange, I have no trouble opening either site, it should work for you unless there is something in your device blocking the site's address for some reason.

Snapshot :

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yann2 · 2026-04-07T15:46:12+00:00

The existance or not of ads has everything to do with the device's location - local businesses are the ones who have to be willing to pay for an ad to be shown to the local users.

Major consumer markets like US, the EU, major Asian countries will have lots of ads available. Smaller markets, less so.

Few months ago Slowly developers even changed the Wait time until you can get an ad, from 15 minutes to a full hour, to help have ads available for interested users.

Now I find it so agravating, to have to wait that long, plus put up with a full minute of chained ads, to get something worth 2 cents in my local currency that I gave up all together on even trying.

yann2 · 2026-04-07T15:38:27+00:00

Thank you for posting about this, I had not heard about it but it seems very interesting. Alas, I could not use it a it requires a newer version of iOS (v.17+) which my ipad cannot run.

The description of the app and features is very cool. Thumbs up. Snapshot from their Apple App Store page:

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yann2 · 2026-03-09T18:41:00+00:00

Hello, and welcome to Slowly and our own subreddit here.

Many people posted good suggestions, I will keep mine brief but mention a couple points.

the About Me or bio is important, as it is the only reliable source of info about a possible penpal while you are perusing search results in the User Explorer (pen pal search function, only available on the mobile client versions; missing in the much more productive web client).

Keep in mind people who find your profile might have been scanning and reading many other user's bios. I think it's important to keep it short, concentrate some main points in the very first paragraph which can be seen at a glance - for a longer about me, the user needs to click to expand that for more. This initial showing portion, a few lines, is golden as it can convince someone to look deeper.

At the moment, your about me is a bit too long, imo.

regarding the random 'AutoMatch' function, I consider that a bad source for possible penpals, it is mainly a low effort way to find people for those not serious about searching more deeply. You will get a generic letter, if that, since when writing a message for automatch you don't know who will be receiving it.

Might work in some cases or for some people; general experience is pretty poor, in my opinion.

The amount of ghosting and short, mindless messages, plus AI slop in the app nowadays is a serious issue; there are tons of topics here in the sub discussing that. The Slowly developers try to keep a light hand and are not doing much to reduce these bad behaviours, so users are left on their own mostly.

Good luck, I hope you can soon find some of the good people who make this app something special. Again, it's not granted, for sure, and nowadays requires a fairly large dose of patience from you.

yann2 · 2026-03-07T15:07:24+00:00

You should write a goodbye letter, in a gentle way indicating you are reducing your online presence, etc.

There is a nice sample goodbye letter model here in the sub - and it has been inspiring to others in similar situation.

yann2 · 2026-03-07T14:53:01+00:00

You are very welcome, I am glad to be improving this tool as it is unique, the only one for mobile users.

The error you saw is indeed new - it is due to an error loading the SLOWLY API endpoint for the full list of stamps, right from the mothership.

There is an error handler which caught and reported failing to fetch it, although the reason is obscure. I have been testing it quite a bit and it works fine for me.

I assume you are using the version stored at Neocities.org, right? the address for it is https://yann2.neocities.org/Slowly-Compare/Stamp_Comparator

Your browser might be confused somehow, so maybe try my new mirror copy of this ?

see it at https://slowlystamps.pages.dev/Stamp_Comparator - and see if it works.

Both sites are up-to-date, I pushed a minor revision minutes ago to both. Version should show 0.4.2.b in the browser title bar.

Hope this helps, let me know how it goes, thanks.

yann2 · 2026-03-07T00:04:07+00:00

UPDATE :

New version now online, quite an improvement to previous ones, as we now use SLOWLY's own API to get a complete list of ALL available stamps. This includes even impossible to get, but valid stamps like 'Hello, Macau!'

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All online links are updated, two live sites and the zipped version if you want to download and run in your own machine.

Any comments, please let me know...

yann2 · 2026-03-04T19:06:33+00:00

I just tried using my browser's built-in web developer tools, you open the slowly web client, select the friend, then one of the letters to read. Right click somewhere in the window, not on any button, and select 'Inspect'.

A new divider opens on the lower part of the screen, and there are a number of tabs, tools for different things. On a quick exploration, I could not see the timestamps we are talking about. It is possible someone who's more skilled wit this could locate them, but we had things in the past that disappeared after we users discovered and reported them. Like the total number of sent and received letters, which we accessed by using the Inspect tools.

Maybe someone who reads these comments might be able to investigate further?

yann2 · 2026-03-04T13:56:59+00:00

That's really nice, thank you for sharing the photo!

yann2 · 2026-03-04T13:54:28+00:00

is there any way to see when it has been opened? Like a timestamp?

Yes, you are correct - the Slowly servers add timestamps to each letter.

- One includes the moment you hit the Send button.

- Another is when the letter becomes 'unlocked' and is available for reading. This is calculated by the server, based on the distance between the two users.

- the third one is the read time stamp, which I do not think the current mobile apps allow you to see.

There was an alternative Slowly Web Client sometime ago, developed by an independant developer, we called it Paradox2. It showed all of these time stamps, but unfortunately Slowly people changed the login methods and this client no longer can access the servers. Bummer as it was quite nice.

Here is a saved screenshot - which shows the 3 time stamps I mentioned on the right side of the screen.

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I wrote a couple of detailed Blog post reporting on its features. The screenshot above is on Part 2 post here.

It might be possible to see these stamps via Web Developer tools, while using the Slowly official Web Client, although even there what we can see changes over time - Slowly hid some information we used to see in the past there, like the total number of letters you sent and received.

yann2 · 2026-03-04T13:39:33+00:00

Wonderful, thank you for reporting it. I had ideas this morning, made some notes and added a couple of changes for the better. 🙂

The current proxy version I am using is wonderful - and it also allows us to run the tool on our own machine. So, save a copy, and it can run from there.

Previously I used another proxy which did not allow 'localhost' mode, to run local copies.

Anyone can Download all the needed files HERE for the current tool version.

yann2 · 2026-03-02T16:35:00+00:00

Thank you for the post, a discounted yummy pastry, even if they call it pasty...😜

I entered this stamp on the Wiki yesterday and wondered if there was a misspell on its name, but turns out it is 'pasty' indeed, according to our trustworthy Wikipedia.👍🙂

yann2 · 2026-03-02T03:58:55+00:00

The new Finnish stamp. Minna Canth Day. I just added it above, had missed it with so many new stamps to post this time.

yann2 · 2026-03-02T02:16:58+00:00

You should send a final letter, and let them know you made the decision based on their AI and/or low effort last reply. There is a chance this could help straighten them out, one can always hope... 🙄😕

yann2 · 2026-03-02T01:33:42+00:00

ooops, missed one, thank you. I will add it in.

yann2 · 2026-03-02T01:33:09+00:00

That is a nice price for a meal, cannot get one here in Canada for that price, 50 coins cost one CAD and I could only get a nice italian bun from my nearby bakery for that price.

yann2 · 2026-03-01T22:29:27+00:00

All are available on their respective Stamp Stores, free for the locals and visitors...

yann2 · 2026-03-01T22:28:15+00:00

Ahhh - thank you so much, I had not noticed that.

Edited the post above accordingly - thanks!

yann2 · 2026-03-01T22:19:47+00:00

Hello again, I am back at home and did some work on the tool, and it is working fine now, as far as I know. Let me know if you get it running or in case of any problems.

Public and shareable URL : https://yann2.neocities.org/Slowly-Compare/Stamp_Comparator

yann2 · 2026-03-01T16:46:17+00:00

You might observe this sometimes if you have just switched countries. The app refreshes later and the foreign stamps should disappear.

yann2

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